


There is Happiness in Our History

by aestheticly_cat



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Hurt Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Introspection, M/M, Nicky | Nicolò di Genova Needs a Hug, Pre-Canon, The Beginning, The Early Years - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28006779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aestheticly_cat/pseuds/aestheticly_cat
Summary: Nicolò di Genova comes into the world quiet, without any of the fanfare common to newborns.His mother smiles, beautiful and exhausted, and says this is a sign of a good and gentle heart. His father is less generous— says it’s a sign of weakness.[In other words, Nicolò grows up, suffers, survives, dies, and lives again.]
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 13
Kudos: 223





	There is Happiness in Our History

**Author's Note:**

> There is happiness in our history,  
> across our great divide.  
> There is a glorious sunrise,  
> dappled with the flickers of light.  
> — “happiness, Taylor Swift”

Nicolò di Genova comes into the world quiet, without any of the fanfare common to newborns. 

His mother smiles, beautiful and exhausted, and says this is a sign of a good and gentle heart. His father is less generous— says it’s a sign of weakness. He pinches Nicolò’s tender skin between two rough fingers, and when he cries out in pain, his first sound in life, he is satisfied. 

[Many lifetimes from his birth, with Yusuf’s hand warm in his own, Nicolò will quietly acknowledge that they were both right, in some ways.] 

He is born into a cool spring, and his first months are spent laughing in the sun, breathing in flower-sweet air. His older brothers are fascinated by him, and he finds himself, more often than not, being held in their arms, tossed into the sky, knowing they will be there to catch him when he falls. 

He grows into a curious young boy, with bright, wide eyes who weeps, inconsolably, over the fragile body of an injured bird.

Nicolò cradles the animal to his chest, and hopes the warmth makes it feel less alone. 

He grows into a brave boy who takes that bird’s life with his own two hands as an act of mercy. He buries it in the earth, twines two branches together into a cross to mark the spot, and says a prayer as old as time itself. 

His father beats him black and blue that night for his foolishness, his softness. Nicolò takes the punishment in determined silence, and it’s only later, when his little sister crawls into his bed with him and wraps her tiny arms around him, that he allows himself to cry. 

As the years pass, and Nicolò becomes a man almost overnight, he realizes that there is something very wrong with him. He is fifteen the first time he catches himself gazing after his friend Luzio in a way his brothers stare after the girls from their village. He cracks his knees on the floor that evening, takes the pain as penance, and prays over his wooden rosary until the sun comes up. 

Nicolò is seventeen when he realizes all his prayers have been in vain.

Nothing, not even the fear of eternal damnation, can take away the feeling that pressing his lips against Luzio’s brings. They secrete themselves away on hot summer nights, skin sliding and sticking together in the heat, hearts beating in tune, and Nicolò knows nothing has ever felt as good, as right, as this. 

In the end, in a twist of fate so bitter and ironic he almost laughs, it’s his beloved little sister, Cecilia, who brings an end to his joy. 

His father is fury personified as he drags the two lovers apart, a group of men from the church standing at the ready. Nicolò is sure he will die this night, comes to terms with it even, but nothing prepares him for the pain that comes from watching his lover die, brutally, at the hands of his father

Odrich had never been a kind man, that is for certain, but Nicolò had never thought him evil or cruel, but he is both as he brings a rock down over and over again, breaking Luzio’s skin open; skin that Nicolò had been running his hands over only moments before. 

Nicolò begs, and screams, and fights until Luzio, finally, mercifully, draws his last breath. 

[Sometime later, outside the gates of Jerusalem with an infidel's sword piercing his heart, Nicolò will think back to this moment, the ground stained with his first love’s blood and bones, and he will go from the world without fear, knowing he has survived death before.]

It’s his mother’s love that saves Nicolò from a similar fate. 

Cecilia, in her guilt and fear, had gone to her, and it’s only when she throws herself over Nicolò’s sobbing form, shielding him as she had in the womb, willing to take the blows meant for him if only he is spared, that Odrich relents. 

They are only granted a moment together before he is dragged away, but the words she whispers into his ear sink into his chest and hold him in a phantom embrace for years to come. 

_“Hold tight to your golden heart, my Nicolò. It is what makes you so strong.”_

  
He never sees his mother again. 

——————————

In the priesthood, Nicolò is taught the scriptures and how to hold a sword with a deadly and holy purpose. He is taught how best to purge himself of sin, of misplaced desire, and his back criss-crosses with self-inflicted scars that turn him into a map of misery. 

It’s almost a relief when the call to war comes. He feels decades older than his almost 30 years, and welcomes the prospect of a death taken in defense of the holy land. 

Nicolò knows he is going to hell— but he can still die for his God. 

And die he does. 

Over and over again at the hands of a brown eyed, wild haired infidel who calls _him_ infidel, who calls _him_ demon, who calls _him_ monster. They both die, and they both live, and they fight on. Nicolò is unsure of how many years they spend like this, locked in a futile war of their own, as the Crusades rage on around them. 

He knows it must have been decades by the time the other man lowers his scimitar, raises his oddly delicate hands into a universal sign of peace, and speaks to Nicolò for the first time, in slow Arabic, without hatred saturating every word.

“I don’t want to hurt you anymore, Frank. Do you understand? Enough.”

Nicolò drops his sword into the sand, and falls to his knees in front of his enemy, his equal, the only other person in the world as far as Nicolò is concerned. 

His only regret is that he wasn’t the first to lay down his weapon. 

——————————

Yusuf— Nicolò spends many nights turning the name around in his mouth, savoring the shape it takes— becomes his traveling companion out of necessity, and circumstance. 

The years following their end to violence are not without hardship, without anger or cruel words. So much pain lies between them that sometimes Nicolò wonders if they will ever be able to bridge the divide, to meet in the middle. 

In the end, it’s more death that finally, blessedly, brings them together. 

The bandits that come in the middle of the night slit Yusuf’s throat before Nicolò can get his feet under him, and he howls, animalistic, inhuman even to his own ears, as the man he has come to love bleeds out on the ground. 

His first death that did not come from Nicolò’s hand.

Nicolò doesn’t want to think about the implications of what that means. 

He cuts down the closest man without mercy, cleaving his head almost completely from his shoulders. The other two rush forward, and meet similar, brutal fates. Their blood is hot and tacky on Nicolò’s skin, but he is heedless of anything but getting Yusuf. 

When the last man gurgles and dies, Nicolò turns and sprints to Yusuf’s side, sliding on his knees as he falls next to him. He cradles the face he knows as well as his own between two blood-soaked hands and prays to a God he is certain can no longer hear him. 

“Please, if you still listen, if you still care, do not take him from me,” Nicolò pleads, pressing his forehead tight to Yusuf’s own, closing his eyes. “I cannot live without him. I will not!” 

As he speaks it into the space between their mouths, he knows it to be true. Should Yusuf not return to him, Nicolò will find the tallest cliff, step off the edge, and break his body against the ground below.

He will turn his sword on himself, plunging it into his own chest until he chokes on blood. 

He will step onto the funeral pyre that holds the man he loves, curl around his body, and burn with him. 

Time, his greatest enemy, drags on as he holds Yusuf’s too cold, too silent body close to his own for the very first time. Distantly, he notes how well they slot together, two halves of a broken whole. 

He thinks of Yusuf’s laugh, rich and warm with the unbridled enthusiasm he faces the world with, no matter how cruel it is to him time and time again. 

He thinks of all the times he’s lain awake well after dark just for a few more moments of staring at Yusuf’s face while he sleeps, while he dreams. 

He trembles with the force of his grief, holding his breath against the agony that is living without Yusuf for a moment longer.

“You know, this is not how I imagined I would end up in your arms,” a hoarse, achingly familiar voice says and Nicolò breathes and lives again with his heart. 

He pulls back, a sound of joy bursting from his own throat, and meets Yusuf’s gentle eyes as they stare up at him. 

A clumsy hand comes up and cups Nicolò’s cheek, and he leans into it desperately, clenching his jaw against the tears that threaten. Yusuf’s thumb swipes over his cheekbone in soothing motions. 

“Nico,” he murmurs, his voice slow and sweet like honey, like the only sound Nicolò ever wants to hear again, “my love.”

Nicolò does cry then, and their first kiss tastes like blood and salt, but neither of them can bring themselves to care.

Their tongues meet, timid and searching, and Nicolò knows nothing has ever felt as good, as right, as this.

Their second kiss tastes like the river water they bathe themselves in, washing away the night’s horror and fear and replacing it with devotion and adoration. Yusuf takes time to trace each and every one of the scars that still mar Nicolò’s back, pressing soft kisses to his throat, his shoulders, as he calls him _precious,_ as he calls him _beautiful,_ as he calls him _heaven-sent._   
  
Nicolò remembers his mother’s words from so long ago, and hopes that she can see him glowing golden under the breaking dawn with his love; his good and gentle heart bruised and battered, but beating still. 

They make love right there on the bank, and as Nicolò finds his pleasure with his love pressed deep inside of him, he prays one final time. 

  
“ _Please, let me keep him. Whatever curse you have cast, let it last. Let it last forever_.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Some Joe/Nicky fluff, but with a good helping of angst this time around. This is completely indulgent. Drop a comment to let me know what you think? 
> 
> Thank you for reading!
> 
> [Also, this chapter title is shamelessly taken from Taylor Swift’s song “happiness” from her new album, evermore. Catch all my fic titles from here on out coming from that masterpiece.]


End file.
